Damn, I need to finish my 12-page paper before it finishes me off for ever. Damn you, Meiji peasant rebellions.

That was enough cursing for a pure young girl like me. Yes! I’ve temporarily left Berlin to be able to concentrate better on my paper but did it work? No, very obviously not. I’ll be back in the city for Popkomm, though! So many cool bands to see! Seachange is going to play in a club right across from where my new apartment is. Oh the joy. I might run over in my pajamas. Or not. (Not that I even own a pair of pajamas.)

Moving to the new apartment was a physically quite demanding job because it included getting all my furniture and belongings from my old third floor apartment into the car and then back up into our new fourth floor apartment. But I haven’t regretted moving in with my friend one bit because I hated living on my own, it made me feel almost suicidally lonesome sometimes, it wasn’t funny anymore. And now I live in just about the most interesting, most inspiring neighbourhood imaginable. Describing it would mean having to resort to all the usual clichés about Prenzelberg (wiki German, wiki English), and they’re all true but they fit me wonderfully so I don’t care.

Hm, I don’t know but I feel like seeing some band but the only band I’d be remotely interested in that’s playing in the city would be The Automatic next Monday. It would be just right, though, in one way because I had Raoul playing in my head when we went to look at the apartment for the first time and it was such a brilliant day and then we even got the apartment…

But for the moment, I’m just enjoying being back with my family and all the boredom that comes with it. (Wait, I shouldn’t say I’m bored because then I might as well go back to writing my paper!) I’ll try and finish watching Eureka seveN, only twenty-something episodes to go -_- No but seriously, I’m glad I’ve kept watching it this far. Around episode 30, it had that enlightening, extremely rewarding moment when all the very very veeerrryyy slow character and plot development paid off because it really made you feel like you came all this long way with the characters. It’s hard to explain, it’s just something personal I suppose.

My almost 2-year struggle for finding the right MP3 player is slowly reaching it’s last stages. Which means – I’m just as indecisive as ever -_-;; But I’ll really need one once the semester’s started again because the train rides to uni will be super long since our new apartment’s pretty much on the other side of the city. I might take the newspaper with me on the train, or a book or some manga, and it might keep me occupied in the afternoons/evenings on the way home; but I surely won’t be able to read in the morning on the train to uni as it makes me even more tired so I just need something to keep me cozy and awake and music softly playing from an MP3 player could do just that :) I need to stop babbling, it makes me sound like an idiot.

I’m reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never let me go at the moment and it has to be one of the most precious books I’ve ever read. It’s indescribably beautiful and filled with so many details, scenes of human interaction and dialogues written in such a warm, realistic way it’s sometimes painful, and there’s a protagonist I can identify myself with so well, I know it’s going to be hard to finish reading the book. I know it because I’ve been putting off reading the last 50 pages or so for a couple of days now. I just don’t want it to end even though it’s been so melancholic and heart-breaking and even terrifying in a very subtle way…

This is such a great season for shoujo anime fans! The TV anime adaptation of Ouran Koukou Host-bu is excellent, I like it a lot more than the manga (which I thought was rather boring when I was still reading LaLa) because it’s so explosively fast-paced and funny. And colourful and heart-warming. Aww. I’m usually not that fond of comedy but this I like, yes.

And Bokura ga ita! One of the few Betsucomi manga I like. So far I’ve only seen the first episode of the anime adaptation but it seemed pretty well done.

There’s NANA, of course, which I’m still following, of course, because the anime doesn’t disappoint at all, of course. The runner-up for this year’s most hyped shoujo title must be Nakahara Aya’s Lovely Complex because of its movie adaptation. I hope I’ll get to see the film soon (most definitely when the DVD comes out), for now I’ll have to be content with the cool furoku in Betsuma *_*
(And then there’s also the HachiKuro TV anime II and the HachiKuro movie. Great year for Shueisha, ha.)

I’ve also been watching Jyuohsei, the adaptation of the same-titled manga by one of my personal mangaka goddesses Itsuki Natsumi (♥).

And then from autumn on, there’ll be TV anime adaptations of Kin’iro no Corda (another bishounen title running in LaLa, I’ll only get to see it if I survive the cuteness and sheer silliness of Ouran Koukou!!) and Yamada Nadeshiko Shichi Henge (which I, admittedly, don’t like all that much as a manga).

Speaking of the latter: one of my favourite Betsufure series, Life by Suenobu Keiko, received the Kodansha Manga Award. So happy!! I felt even more glad when I read some of the members of the jury’s notes explaining they’d voted for Kawahara Kazune’s Koukou Debut and that it was a tight decision between those two titles in the shoujo category. I was a huge fan of Kawahara’s Sensei! but Koukou Debut turned out to be such a huge disappointment to me that I’m sort of twice as glad Life got the award ^^; But no really, Life’s such a brilliant series. It embodies so much of ‘classic’ shoujo, the drama, the emotions, the style, I’m glad it’s been getting all this recognition!

OMG, semester break. I’d be all hyper and jumping all over the place with joy if only the massive heat wasn’t getting me down so much. Consider me one giant sweatdrop.

But yes, semester break. I shall get back to my habits of getting up late, watching anime and dorama, reading (oh yes!) and going out till early in the morning. Getting up late was what I did today, anime and dorama will be watched in a few minutes, as soon as I finish this. I have so much to catch up with: Mushishi, Eureka SeveN, Ergo Proxy, .hack//Roots, Ai no uta. I’m pretty much stuck in the middle of almost all of them. Then I’ll need to find out what the summer season has brought us anime viewers. Ah, so nice to back to doing nothing particularly productive :)

…Even if it’s just for a short while. I’ll be moving to a larger, nicer apartment with a friend at the beginning of August and I also have one report to write and a few smaller things to get done for school. I’m quite happy with my academic progress and I think I did pretty well on all the semester finals.

June was my favourite month of this year so far. The World Cup was absolutely brilliant, the city was brimming with people, the atmosphere was just amazing. I also saw the Arctic Monkeys on June 24. It was only so-so, the monkey boys were late and drunk and their performance seemed quite uninspired but loads of fun was had nevertheless. We even missed the second half of the Germany-Sweden game to get to the venue. Oh well. My World Cup experience pretty much ended on July 1, when England lost to Portugal. I was with Germany from then on but they didn’t survive much longer either. *sighs*

I’ll probably be uploading new songs tonight. Expect updates on a more regular basis from now on. Oh yes, I’ll be back whenever boredom strikes ;)

The media blogging continues. I’ve been watching 「１リットルの涙」/1 Litre of Tears over the last few days and finished it last night.
This TV drama is based on the best-selling diaries and notes written by a young girl, who suffered from an incurable disease called Spinocerebellar Degeneration, and her mother; the 11-episode TV series was broadcast from October till December 2005. You can find a synopsis here.

Through the series the viewer accompanies Aya, the girl with the terrible illness that will inevitably lead to her death, from her mid-teens until her early twenties. Aya is a typical teenager, she has loving parents and three younger siblings who each admire their older sister for her intelligence in school and her talent on the basketball court. We see her enjoy her daily life until small incidents occur during which Aya seems to lose control over her body. And after Aya has to be sent to the hospital, first her mother and then she herself is told she’s suffering from SCD. Due to her sickness, Aya will lose her first love (but gain a much stronger one), her friendships will be put to the test and much sooner than later, Aya’s life will change completely as she will be no longer able to walk, talk and eat properly. Through all of this, her family will become Aya’s greatest source of support and will enable her to keep her strong will to live.

The producers should have given a warning somewhere that the title, 1 Litre of Tears, refers to the approximate volume of tears cried by the viewer during each episode. I haven’t seen something so painful in quite some time. Its portrayal of the Ikeuchi family, that gave Aya strength even though not only Aya herself but each member of her family suffered because of her illness, and of the relationship between Asou and Aya that was characterised by the fear of an impending loss, shame and helplessness but also by an understanding beyong words, are extraordinarily touching and beautiful. The series manages to keep a good balance between pure, human drama and a (healthy) dose of kitsch.

Everything about that series is perfect to me. The music, the atmosphere. The actors’ performances are all convincing and really the backbone of the difficult story. The plot develops evenly at a good pace and throughout the course of the series there isn’t a single episode that seems weaker than the others, each leaves a strong impression on you that’ll stay with you for a long long time.

The new anime season started off for me with NANA, which was also my personal most anticipated new series for spring ‘06. This being the adaptation of one of my favourite shoujo manga, my expectations were extremely high.

The animation is being done be Studio MADHOUSE, who did a great job at Paradise Kiss, another adaptation of a Yazawa Ai manga, in the second half of last year.

And they did not disappoint me with NANA. Luckily, the first episode proved that the TV anime is not a pannel to frame adaptation but takes a bit of artistic freedom here and there by leaving things out, adding short scenes and showing scenes from a different angle than in the manga, so it doesn’t give the avid NANA manga reader the feeling they’ve “seen” it all before.
(Which is what happened to me with the NANA movie last year where some scenes seemed all too familiar, especially the scene on the train, the two Nanas’ first meeting, because it used the same angles as the manga and seemed to follow it pannel by pannel.)

The character design of the anime is good, but by no means as cute or beautiful as in the manga. Especially the profiles tend towards the ugly side of things, and a lot of times the full body proportions seem too stretched, even for a shoujo series.

The animation itself is quite decent, including the CG sequences which blend in rather well with the traditionally created scenes.

The music fits pretty well; the opening theme by Tsuchiya Anna and the ending theme by Olivia set the mood for the respective bands and these two vocalists symbolize the fact that NANA (like the original manga itself) is not about authentic (indie) rock or punk but just their mainstream versions (or how the mainstream perceives these genres).

What I’ve noticed after the first 5 minutes already, is that the TV adaptation relies heavily on comedy scenes, more than the manga. The background music (which sometimes reminded me of BGM to be heard during a circus show) emphasized that effect. There were more melancholic and quieter scenes but they definitely were fewer (and shorter) than those slapstick comedy scenes.

I am satisfied with the way they condensed the story, though Hachi/Nana doesn’t quite come off as the bad girl she really is as they left out a lot of her past (her affair with the married man etc.) but this was only the first episode and they might fit in bits of the background story at some later point.

The first episode aired late this past Wednesday so naturally, there aren’t any fansubs out yet. However, if your knowledge of (modern, everyday) Japanese is at a medium degree, you’ll be able to follow the dialogue pretty well. And if you’ve read the manga in Japanese (like me), you won’t face any difficulties at all because all the lines have been used in the manga and you won’t hear anything new.

Ah, I almost forgot: the voice acting! I love Oosaki Nana’s voice *_* Last year, I took really long to get used to Nakashima Mika’s voice who played Nana in the movie adaptation. Her voice sometimes seemed a bit too weak. Not with Paku Romi, the voice actress of the animated Nana :) She has this ultra deep, manly voice which is how I imagine it when reading the manga. And it’s when she speaks softlier that she sounds irresistibly sexy! So far, I really really like her. Hachi’s voice is alright and there’s nothing to be said about the rest of the cast because besides Shouji and Junko, no other main characters have appeared yet. Can’t wait for next week’s episode~

Here are some screencaps:

I suppose I should study for my Korean history final next week, but… escapism!!!
(I have three finals next week and have done next to no studying at all, except loads of reading for Korean history which was one of the most interesting courses this semester and deserves a bit of work from my part.)

The Berlinale opened on Thursday! Oh the excitement. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen so many people with press IDs tagged to their woolcoats on Potsdamer Platz. But, did I mention the sheer excitement? :D The festival clashes horribly with my finals; I think I know where my priorities lie though. Sort of. Which means I’ll try and catch most of the films I want to see from next Thursday on, when my finals will be over. I’ve removed all American and/or mainstream movies from my festival schedule because they’ll hit theatres here sooner or later anyway so I’ve ended up with a nice list of Asian films:
- Women Liang (China)
- 4:30 (Singapore)
- Sabu’s Shisso (Japan)
- Bokura wa mou kaerenai (Japan)
- Bangmunja (South Korea)
- The Peter Pan Formula (South Korea)
- Dear Pyongyang (Japan)
- Mizu no hana (Japan)
And if I can fit them in anywhere, I might also see Mechilot from Israel, Grbavica from Bosnia Herzegovina and Vacationland from the US of A.

To prevent me entirely from being a good, hard-working student, I bought myself a Nintendo DS a few weeks ago. Some devilish demon placed one with a Mario Kart DS demo right in the middle of the store so I – the Mario Kart addict – thought why not play for a bit, and that was that. The graphics are absolutely fantastic and the game itself is, now who would’ve thought, highly addictive so I gave in and bought a nice shiny silver DS+Mario Kart DS game bundle thing. Goodbye hard earned money. Good buy.
(Blessed be the kind souls at Nintendo for acknowleding the importance of downward compatibility which allows us to play GBA games on the DS. I’m currently replaying Harvest Moon – Friends of Mineral Town and also dug out Dr. Mario. It’ll be all my fault if I don’t pass any of my finals ~_~)

I’ve been subjected to such incredible injustice today. It’s just so frustrating to be treated in an unfair way, unequal to the others. Had a hard time holding back the tears, I was that disappointed. Oh well. A coffee, a good friend to talk to (she’s the best!), and Bloc Party afterward made me put everything into perspective. I don’t give a shit anymore, really.

(Now that was abstract.)

A short recap of the past few weeks: Christmas was lovely, New Year’s Eve was rather quiet, my presentation last Tuesday went pretty well too (Prof liked it loads, whee *^-^*). So yes. All’s fine. Except… oh well.

Did all of you see Match Point? I have to admit I’m not that much of a Woody Allen fan and I mostly went to see it because of Mr Rhys-Meyers and Miss Johansson but who cares what made me want to watch it in the first place? All that matters is I saw it. And loved it. Every minute of it. It was so real, so intense, so complex, so absolutely convincing ♥

I’m also trying to watch a bit of anime. The new season features so many good series, it’s really hard to keep up with all of them. Mushishi has to be one of my favourites of the season; it’s neo-japanesque (o_O), atmospheric, almost melancholic and natsukashii; and the sceneries are so beautiful, absolutely amazing. I’m still trying to find out whose subs are the best, I think I’m going to stick with the releases by AF-F. (The downside of not actually needing subtitles because your Japanese is rather good is you become picky about subs that leave out bits of information or even get whole sentences wrong.)
I’m also watching Monster (until the subbers finally finish it), Garasu no kamen, Eureka seveN (for my dose of recycled mecha action drama, it’s quite sad how every single element of that show has already been used in other titles of the genre; but I’m still addicted…), Noein and ParaKisu.

On the manga front, I’ve been reading lots of shoujo classics and newer works by older artists (Kuramochi Fusako, Ikuemi Ryou). I’m still subscribed to Betsuma and Hana to yume so that makes for a nice stack of low quality paper in my apartment and hours of fun for an avid manga reader.
All my novel-reading ambitions had to be cancelled though because I figured I really need to catch up with Korean history first or else I will most definitely not pass my class. (Like all my fellow students of Japanese, who absolutely have to take this Korean History course for the BA – for whatever reasons, probably will -_-)